different between spurious vs seeming

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Late Latin spurius (“illegitimate, bastardly”), possibly related to sperno or from Etruscan.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?spj??.?i.?s/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?spj?.?i.?s/, /?sp?.?i.?s/, /?spj?.?i.?s/
• Rhymes: -???i?s

Adjective

spurious (comparative more spurious, superlative most spurious)

1. False, not authentic, not genuine.

   His argument was spurious and had no validity.

   • 2013, Russell Brand, Russell Brand and the GQ awards: 'It's amazing how absurd it seems' (in The Guardian, 13 September 2013)[1]

     We witness that there is a relationship between government, media and industry that is evident even at this most spurious and superficial level. These three institutions support one another. We know that however cool a media outlet may purport to be, their primary loyalty is to their corporate backers. We know also that you cannot criticise the corporate backers openly without censorship and subsequent manipulation of this information.
2. Extraneous; stray; not relevant or wanted.

   I tried to concentrate on the matter in hand, but spurious thoughts kept intruding.

   Spurious emissions from the wireless mast were causing nearby electrical equipment to go haywire.

3. (archaic) bastardly, illegitimate

Synonyms

• (false): counterfeit, fake, false, bogus
• See also Thesaurus:fake
• See also Thesaurus:illegitimate

Antonyms

• (false): genuine, representative

Derived terms

• spuriosity
• spuriously
• spuriousness

Translations

See also

• specious

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?si?m??/
• Homophones: seaming, seming
• Rhymes: -i?m??

Verb

seeming

1. present participle of seem

Adjective

seeming (comparative more seeming, superlative most seeming)

1. Appearing to the eye or mind (distinguished from, and often opposed to, real or actual).

   Synonyms: apparent, ostensible

   • 1671, Aphra Behn, The Amorous Prince, or, The Curious Husband, London: Thomas Dring, Act II, Scene 5, pp. 32-33,^[1]

     I'le hide my anger in a seeming calm,
     And what I have to do, consult the while,
     And mask my vengeance underneath a smile.

   • 1765, Oliver Goldsmith, Essays, London: W. Griffin, Essay 18, p. 150,^[2]

     Of all the English philosophers, I most reverence Bacon, that great and hardy genius: he it is who, undaunted by the seeming difficulties that oppose, prompts human curiosity to examine every part of nature;

   • 1876, George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, Chapter 27,^[3]

     […] she was overcome like the thirsty one who is drawn toward the seeming water in the desert […]

   • 1955, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012, Chapter 10,^[4]

     […] though they marched in seeming peace, the hearts of all the army, from the highest to the lowest, were downcast, and with every mile that they went north foreboding of evil grew heavier on them.

Derived terms

• seemingly
• seemingness

Translations

Noun

seeming (countable and uncountable, plural seemings)

1. Outward appearance.
   • 1971, Iris Murdoch, An Accidental Man, New York: Viking, p. 162,^[7]

     I am not what I seemed to her, he thought, and doubtless she is not what she seemed to me, but it is our lot to be irrevocably condemned to seemings and to deserve them too.

2. (obsolete) Apprehension; judgement.
   • 1604, Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie, London, Preface, p. 39,^[8]

     Nothing more cleare vnto their seeming, then that a new Jerusalem being often spoken of in Scripture, they vndoubtedly were themselues that newe Ierusalem,

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 8, lines 736-738,^[9]

     […] in her ears the sound
     Yet rung of his perswasive words, impregn’d
     With Reason, to her seeming, and with Truth;

Translations